Harrison Ford, the actor and the living legend. How many of us, autograph collectors wanted to have his autograph? Unfortunately it is well known that although Harrison Ford is very friendly and great signer IN-PERSON, he is still one of the impossible TTM personalities. From what I have heard it's not because he is plain bad (actually people tell he is very nice), but rather because of big demand. People said, he signed autographs in the past, when there were not so many autograph seekers and currently people are getting preprints from his address, no matter what.

However for 4 lucky bastards, what we are, the collective attempt to get his autograph turned up to be a real success and brought 4 authentic autographs from the set of Mr. Ford's latest movie - "K19 - The Widowmaker". We managed to get 4 authentic autographs of Mr. Harrison Ford.

All of them are on the same 10x8 color portrait of Mr. Ford from his K19 movie. All of them are personalized with 'Best wishes' to our names. And when I mentions authentic - I mean it. I seriously know that this is genuine stuff. Personally I never seen Harrison Ford autograph before, so I took the trouble to compare it to preprints and other IN-PERSONS just in case and it matches them perfectly. But you can all see those below.

The story is very unusual and thrilling. Not that we were so special or something, but rather I would say, that luck turned forward to us and we made it in the right place in the right time.

I might take a bit of time to introduce ourselves, but you might already know us from the lists. We are Jerry Morris from the U.S., Stephen Mann from the U.K., Lars Olav Karlsen from Norway, and myself - the narrator - Leonid Likhatchev a.k.a. Leon from Latvia. We were brought together as we helped occasionally each other, with some stamps, autograph and such. And each of us know the rest pretty well.

It's all started from the search that we did on the internet. As some of the collectors know now - trying to get celebrity from a movie set can sometimes get you an authentic response. So, while I was digging the web for upcoming movies and emailing my personal contacts in the biz to get some info, I found that new movie is going to be shot, that will feature Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson and it will be called "K19 - The WIDOWMAKER". From what I found out I get the approximate shooting dates as well as production company information and address.

As soon as the production started I sent a 'standard' mail request that I send to a production companies in order to get to difficult celebrity. Unfortunately in 3 weeks it turned back as RTS.

At first I thought that this is going to be the end for such attempt, but then again I realized that we have not only standard company info but also contact information and name of someone in the production company. So, I sent email to Jerry, telling that we got the numbers for K19 and after RTS we still some sort of minimal hope if we try to phone them and ask maybe for correct address or something. For Jerry as he lives in U.S. it is very easy to make a call, whilst for us is very
difficult due to time difference.

Jerry was very kind and optimistic to help us and said that he will give a go for this phone. But let’s give Jerry a word to tell his side of this story…

Harrison Ford. This name is at the top of many collectors’ wish list. What we know about Mr. Ford, based on reports from people who have had the opportunity to meet him, is that he is a great person to talk to and very accommodating in regards to getting his signature in-person. The issue that faces many of us is that where we live make it a difficult proposition to have an opportunity to meet him in-person.

Leon was on a mission, a mission we all shared. Letter attempts to his movie set location for “K-19: The Widowmaker” were resulting in the dreaded RTS. However, through Leon’s diligent work, we had another avenue to pursue. While I had read a post somewhere that this movie had already wrapped, Leon had unearthed a contact that we could try to pursue. As loyal fans, we had to pursue it. It was a simple phone call. If we were told “no”, then we would move on but at least we know we tried. The flip side, obviously, was that the payoff would be huge.

What I found out was that the movie was actually still filming. However, an attempt to get an address was met with a reluctance to share it. The reasons I was given for this were very valid, however, instead of giving up and thanking the person and hanging up…I turned the conversation to why the attempt at getting his autograph meant so much to us.

I do not pretend to be a great negotiator in order to sway a person’s decision, but I felt it was this person’s nature to help in anyway they could. Being huge fans, it was easy to convey the admiration and respect we had for Mr. Ford’s talent and abilities. I also shared our frustration that it would be very difficult for us to meet him in-person due to where we all lived.

During the discussion there were interesting and light-hearted questions that ranged from casual collectors to autograph valuations. But I took these seriously and responded to them in kind. The result was not a promise, but help in attaining a photo from “K-19” personally signed and, by their insistence, personalized by Mr. Ford (certainly, personalization was not an issue and actually very desirable). I also learned at the end of the conversation that this person did indeed have some clout to give us the best chance to get the coveted autograph.

With the understanding of the confidentiality and actions required on our part, this began a series of conversations that spanned many weeks. We kept our hopes at success at a reasonable level of expectation…although this was very tough. Regardless of the outcome, it did present a great opportunity to learn of some of the behind the scenes workings of filming. This person was a sincere pleasure to talk to and they remained upbeat that something could be done as the weeks went on. We finally received word that Mr. Ford’s “people” agreed to consider the request and it was submitted with a ton of autograph signing requirements for promotion of the film. The numbers of items to be signed were very high, dimming some of our hopes, but we now had our “foot in the door”.

The results speak for themselves. I was floating when I received word that the autographs were indeed done for us by Mr. Ford, personally. I also found out it was not Mr. Ford’s “people” that green-lighted the request, but Mr. Ford himself. The reason we were not told it was Mr. Ford is that the chance that it would not happen was still there, and to reveal that Mr. Ford had given his consent personally may have elevated our hope to a point where it would be more hurtful if it did not work out. I also found out that there was a lot of interaction done with Mr. Ford during the course of filming, and everything we had read about him as a person was true. I was told that he is one of the sweetest actors one could work with on the set, an incredible human being.

As a condition of keeping the address confidential, the photos were Fed Exed to me from the filming location and I forwarded them to the rest of us who had worked hard and shared in this endeavor.

While we are very pleased to have received this rare TTM success, we wanted to share the experience with collectors. Hard to obtain autographs can take a lot of work to make an attempt. While we may be faced with a “failure”, the rewards of some of the hard work paying off makes it all worthwhile. The first “no” may not be the final answer. Conveying truthfully about why an autograph is desirable can have positive affects. Sometimes the answer remains “no”, but once in a while, polite persistence pays off. Many collectors understand this, this report is a reinforcement of the fact that one should never give up.

In this case, we could have taken the thought that it was nearly impossible to gain a success given the history we knew and just moved on. We took the opportunity which resulted in a great success and the pleasure of interacting with someone who had a desire to help loyal fans gain access to someone we normally could not get and understanding what it would mean to us to obtain his signature.

- Jerry

So, that's it. Jerry had received 4 autographs for all of us and mailed the autographs to each of us. And here we are - the happy owners of the incredible Harrison Ford autograph.

It will truly be one of our best collecting experience and one of our most favorite autograph. Will be there a continue of our united efforts? May be, but it all depends on what info we may end up with.

So to finish this on a positive note - look around, dig as much information as possible, utilize your contacts and make new ones, and eventually it may lead to success such as this.

Good luck to you all.

Leon (Latvia) on the behalf of Jerry (U.S.A.), Stephen (United Kingdom) and Lars (Norway)

PS: On a side note, we have to say according to the wish of our contact who helped us with autographs, we cannot provide name or address unfortunately. Also we want you to make sure that we are in no way associated with show business as such. We were simply lucky and it all took a big research from us.